Interdisciplinary Thinking

What is interdisciplinary thinking? Some might dismiss it as just a catchy tagline the Honors Program uses to sound academic. Others might guess it’s fun to use during college but not beyond. In reality though, interdisciplinary thinking can be much, much more. For Lucy Wesemann, an Honors Student majoring in biology, interdisciplinary thinking is a way of life.

“I’ve only had two majors on paper, but I’ve had about 30 or 40 in my head,” laughs Lucy as she introduces herself. She knew she’d have major FOMO sticking to one major, but thanks to the Honors Program, she didn’t have to miss out!

“The interdisciplinary classes are so cool! I have so much respect for the professors that create them.”

One of Lucy’s most memorable experiences in Honors was participating in the Unexpected Connections class “The Art of Transformative Storytelling.” Students were instructed to design an immersive experience based on a universal physical, emotional, or social need, “which is as broad a prompt as you can possibly get,” Lucy mentioned.

It wasn’t easy at the start. “I just remember feeling absolutely lost.” But Lucy and her team came together to produce an incredible creative project that highlighted the fact that vulnerability can be the solution to loneliness. “The goal of our experience was to help participants see that there is more to everyone’s story.”

Another fascinating part of the class involved writing and performing a creative monologue about a transformative experience from the student’s lives. “This was very much outside of my comfort zone, but also very memorable. Definitely not a skill you get in a typical biology class,” Lucy added.

“The Art of Transformative Storytelling” exemplified interdisciplinary thinking—a way to integrate various perspectives and paradigms into a new idea. Lucy agrees, “I think synergy is a good word to describe what they do. Together these classes make something greater than the sum of their parts.”

The class set the theme for Lucy’s college experience: learning how to address needs and how to tell a story. She had a similar experience in Honors 320, trying to answer the question, “What is original?” Working with disciplines she never thought she’d cross paths with as a biology major – copyright law, music, philosophy of math – her world was expanded. “It added so much to my education, all these creative projects, because that’s not the type of learning you do as a STEM major.”

Lucy quickly found that the skills she had developed and refined in the Honors Program could be used in more than just Honors classes. “What I learned, especially about interdisciplinary thinking, was especially useful in my marketing internship with the Marriott School.”

Eventually, it all came together in her Honors thesis. The road from start to finish, though, was anything but typical. “Let me start by saying this, the thesis I proposed was very different from the thesis I defended. And I'm very happy about that.”

In a very roundabout way, Lucy ended up studying the RB1 mutant subgroup of glioblastoma patients. Glioblastoma,” she explains, “is a deadly type of brain cancer—one of the worst diagnoses you can get. But there is a particular subgroup of patients with a mutation in a tumor suppressor gene called RB1 who actually survive longer.” At first, this doesn’t make sense – this gene is supposed to be a preventative measure against cancer, and it’s those who have the mutation that live longer.

Just as she had learned to do in her Unexpected Connections class, Lucy found a need: “The scientific community doesn’t have data to support this theory right now—it’s just an idea. But I think I found the data.” Using a publicly available data set, she compiled the data and wrote a code, formulating some evidence to support this ongoing scientific inquiry. “That felt really rewarding.”

Not only did she contribute to the scientific community with her work, but Lucy also told a story through her research (check out her thesis poster on display in the Maeser building!). She attributes this in part to the advice her mentor, Dr. Payne, gave her: “If people are bored about your science, it’s your fault, because science isn’t boring. You’ve got to frame it in a way that makes people care about it.”

“And boy do I care about science!” Lucy laughs. To her, there is nothing more beautiful than discovering the way the world works and uncovering its mysteries through scientific research.

After graduating in August, Lucy will be attending Harvard University in the fall to pursue a PhD in immunology and she couldn’t be more amazed and grateful to those who helped her get here, “It takes a village.” In expressing her passion for her field of study, Lucy quoted the personal statement she wrote for her application: “I am easily fascinated by the diversity and beauty of life. To ponder the universal ancestor through which all living things came into existence is a spiritual experience for me.”

As a true interdisciplinarian, Lucy aims to jump right into the world of medical research, doing her part in answering needs wherever they are, knowing that it takes much more than biology to do that.

Her decision to pursue medical research as opposed to attending medical school comes back to her true appreciation for interdisciplinary thinking, “There is a need at the center of it always—to improve human health, and the human experience. And we need all sorts of research to do that, not just science. We need every discipline. That’s why I was so indecisive about it, because I see so much potential in every discipline, to improve the human experience. Art is so important, music, history, sociology, philosophy, all of it.”

“I think being a well-rounded student is the point of college,” says Lucy as she reflects on her experiences in the Honors Program. She encourages Honors Students (who typically have a reputation of being perfectionists) to find the balance between academics and a life outside of school. “Grades are important, but they’re not everything.”

As she moves on to the next adventure, Lucy is taking the lessons she learned here in the Honors Program with her. “A goal of mine is to stay well rounded – to stay interdisciplinary. I want to be able to stay fluent in all the languages.”